As a new reporter for the community magazine, amanda was nervous about doing her first interview with the state governor. she asked cameron, a veteran reporter, for some advice. cameron told amanda the first rule of an interview is to make the other person feel comfortable. the second rule is to ask open questions, the kind that requires more than a "yes" or "no" answer. which of these is a key idea in the paragraph?
a. an older man is providing suggestions on how to ask controversial questions.
b. a young woman is seeking the of someone more experienced.
c. an interview is not going well because the reporter does not know what she is doing.
d. a reporter is about to expose a local politician in a feature story.

The key idea of the above paragraph is B. A young woman is seeking the help of someone more experienced. The paragraph above is about Amanda, a new reporter who seeks help to Cameron, a veteran, and an experienced reporter.  

EXPLANATION:  

Finding the key idea in a paragraph is important for us as the readers to understand what is a paragraph talks about. If we don’t know the key idea of a paragraph, we will completely lose the idea of the whole paragraph. We might also misunderstand the paragraph is we fail to find the key idea of it. The example is the paragraph above. If we don’t know what is the key idea of that paragraph, we won’t get the information lying in it.  

Let’s try to break down the reasons why the second option is the best answer. At first, we know that there is a new reporter for the community magazine, Amanda who is being nervous about her interview with the state governor. She later asks for advice from her senior, Cameron, about what is best to ask the state governor during the interview. Cameron, as a senior, veteran, and experienced reporter, gives Amanda some advice about the kind of questions she could ask during the interview.  

Based on Cameron's information, Amanda should ask open questions that require more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Amanda should also make the subject of her interview comfortable. Thus, the key idea of that paragraph is that “A young woman is seeking the help of someone more experienced.”  

The first option is not correct because Cameron is a woman, not an older man. She also doesn’t advise Amanda to ask controversial questions, because she advises Amanda to ask a comfortable and open question. The third option is not correct because we don’t know yet whether the interview is going to be well or not because there is no information yet about that in the paragraph. The last option is also incorrect because we don’t whether Amanda puts her interview in a feature story or not.  

LEARN MORE:  

If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, we recommend you to also take a look at the following questions:

1.What is the example of open questions?  

2.What are the three best ways to generate ideas for a writing project?  

KEYWORDS:  key idea, key idea of a paragraph, what is the key idea of a paragraph  

Subject: English

Class: 10-12

Sub-chapter: Main idea of a paragraph